It’s one thing to outrun eldritch horrors and malevolent beings in the Fog inDead By Daylight, but it’s another thing entirely to outrun a vengeful soul fromRingu. Coming from the critically-acclaimed 1991 novelRing,Ringutells the tale of a cursed videotape that seemingly brings death to everyone who gets to view its contents.
RELATED:Dead by Daylight: Conjuring Villains That Would Be Perfect as Killers
And with the Fog bringing entities themselves to life, the upcomingRingucollaboration might mean the upcomingDead By DaylightKiller wouldn’t need seven days to kill unfortunate Survivors. However, just what else do fans need to know aboutRingu?
9The Original Story Dabbles More Into Medical Sci-Fi Horror
While theRingufilm series is based loosely on the events of theRingseries of novels, the way horror is tackled varies greatly across each media. WhereasDead By Daylightwill likely adapt the more supernatural horror style of theRingufranchise, the originalRingseries had a more grounded - albeit equally bizarre - approach to its concepts.
At its core, theRingnovel series explores the Ring Virus, a supernatural virus seemingly created out of Sadako Yamamura’s swearing of vengeance to the world after her horrific death. Whereas the films had Sadako be actively involved in the demise of her videotape’s victims, the novels focused more on the Ring Virus itself. And while Sadako becomes involved in the latter novels, her recurring roles have more medical sci-fi than horror roots.
8The Split Movie Timelines
While the Japanese adaptation ofRingwill have a global presence, some fans might be surprised that the film entries in the Japanese franchise aren’t at all necessarily consistent. In fact, it helps to know that there are actually three different timelines associated with theRingufilms, each with slightly altered takes on the story. Here are the timelines:
7Sadako And Her Tragic Past
Sadako Yamamura remains the central figure throughout both theRingnovels and theRingufilms. And while she serves asthe franchise’s central antagonist, she may have also become the story’s tragic first victim. Sadako is the child of Shizuko Yamamura, a person with latent psychic abilities, and a father that differed in the film (an oceanic entity) and the books (a psychiatry professor). Unlike her mother, Sadako is a much more powerful psychic, with abilities that differed depending on her incarnation.
RELATED:Dead by Daylight: Hidden Secrets In The Lore
Unfortunately for Sadako, she dies horribly in both media. In the novels, Sadako is raped and thrown into a nearby well that resulted in her death. Meanwhile, in the films, the acting troupe Sadako joined eventually became the cause of her death, again at the well but while starving for three decades.
6The Cursed Videotape
Aside from Sadako, it’s perhaps her Cursed Videotape that remains one of the most recognizable elements in both theRingufilms and even throughout the horror genre. In the films and the firstRingnovel, it’s through the Cursed Videotape that Sadako exacts her revenge on humanity. Anyone who watches the videotape will only have seven days to live before they inevitably die. Ironically enough, the last part of the videotape actually contained steps on how to stop the curse but was overwritten as a joke by the previous holders of the tape in events before the first film.
In the books, anyone who’s watched the Cursed Videotape dies mysteriously of a heart attack after a week. In the films, the curse manifests in a person in different ways:
Moreover, the deaths in the films were more horrific compared to the books. In the films, Sadako herself manifests from reflective surfaces (such as television screens) to kill her victims. The cursed leave an expression of pure terror on their face and are often found in locations different from where Sadako killed them.
5Film Sadako: Nensha, Thoughtography
Sadako in the films is likely the basis for the new villain inDead By Daylight, meaning her abilities will likely reflect this incarnation. Unfortunately for Survivors, Sadako in the films isextremely powerful. When she was alive, Sadako demonstrated vast telekinetic powers, as well as some degree of regenerative abilities. Assuming she’s inherited her mother’s abilities, Sadako should have precognitive abilities as well.
RELATED:Great AA Games You Can Play On The Xbox Series X/S
However, Sadako’s more notable ability is something called Nensha or Thoughtography, a pseudoscientific concept the film series popularized. At its core, Nensha lets Sadako telekinetically “imprint” images onto surfaces, including a person’s consciousness. This allowed her to create the Cursed Videotape with images from her experiences, and accidentally in the form of a sound recording while she was still alive. As a ghost, Sadako can seemingly teleport, possess others, and is practically immortal.
4Novel Sadako: The Ring Virus
While the Cursed Videotape has its origins purely from Sadako’s wrath, the novel’s version of the Cursed Videotape reveals that it’s not the “videotape” itself that has the curse but its contents. Prior to her death, Sadako became infected by the smallpox of her assailant, which she then mutated with her own DNA. Now dubbed as the Ring Virus, anyone cursed will have parts of their DNA become the Ring Virus.
Throughout seven days, one of the arteriesof the infectedheart will have a sarcoma, which eventually clogs the artery and causes heart failure. Perhaps more horrifying is the fact that the Ring Virus isn’t just contained in the Cursed Videotape, but even transmits itself through other means. In the novels, these include a report regarding theRing, a novelization of the report, and a film based on the novelization.
3The Mysterious Case Of The Sadako Clones
More bizarrely, the extent of Sadako’s psychic abilities and technopathy become elaborated throughout the novels. Since the erasure condition of the Virus got deleted in the videotape, it somehow had to wait for something else to happen to it. After it was copied for the first time, the Virus mutatedto have two strains. The first one, a ring-shaped strain, is the original Virus that will kill anyone exposed to it within a week.
However, the second one is the stranger variant. Shaped like a spermatozoa, the second strain remains dormant in the infected, except if they were in ovulating women. In this case, the Ring Virus will infect the ovum and become a clone of Sadako. This explains why Sadako managed to become resurrected in the original novel, and how at least four of her are rampant in the other novels.
2The LOOP Universe
InLoop, the third novel of the series explores the idea of the Ring Virus much further. As the story unfolds, protagonist Kaoru Futami contracts something known as the Metastatic Human Cancer (MHC), a disease associated with those who participated in the LOOP Project. In the books, this is a virtual reality simulator designed to simulate human evolution. However, this ended up becominga somewhat realistic simulation of the world.
The novel eventually reveals that it’s in the LOOP Project where the events of the firstRingnovels unfolded. Moreover, creators of the project tried recreating the death of a “Ring” character that contracted the Ring Virus to “clone” them. This brought the Ring Virus to their reality, thus creating the MHC. In the end, Kaoru is revealed to be the clone of the said person and has developed immunity to the MHC. He sends himself into the LOOP Universe to become a cure for the MHC and also cure the Ring Virus.
1Fighting Another Spiritual Entity
Unfortunately for horror fans, Sadako participates in her showdown of the century in the 2016 flickSadako vs. Hayako. Here, two friends manage to grab hold of an “upgraded” videotape of Sadako’s curse. As they run out of time, a psychic suggests unleashing Sadako in a cursed place to fight an entity of equal power. To avoid death, the protagonists brought themselves to a home cursed by the presence of Kayako Saeki, the antagonist ofJu-On.
While the idea is to save the protagonists by having the two spirits destroy themselves, something worse happens. In their power struggle, the two entities merge to become Sadakaya, which has Sadako’s appearance but the death rattle of Kayako.
Dead By Daylightwas released in June 2016 and is currently playable on the PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Google Stadia, iOS, and Android.
